We Aren't In Love Or Anything
by nericearren
Summary: A collection of short stories featuring Emma Frost and Scott Summers from Wolverine and the X-Men; otherwise known as the couple that didn't get nearly enough screen time. Scott dreams of her, Logan does ballet, and Emma just can't accept a gift. Latest update: Second Fiddle, the Scott/Jean explosion(I tried to be gentle! But they kept biting.).
1. Bench Talks

**************Bench Talks

"You got me a teddy bear."

From her expression, I guessed that she was less than overwhelmed with awe and love for me.

"It has your name embroidered on it." I pointed out, waving the thing's paw at my therapist.

She pressed long, manicured nails to her temple, the look in her eyes one that I was blindingly familiar with-despair. "Scott. It's a _teddy bear_."

"Um-yeah. I noticed." She couldn't ever just accept a gift.

"How _old_ do you think I am?" Her voice was laced with contempt, her light accent deepening with the promise of sarcasm to come.

"I . . . am not going to answer that." I said, settling the teddy bear in my lap once it became clear that Emma Frost was not, under any circumstances, going to accept the furry wonder. "I thought everybody liked teddy bears."

"Give it to Logan, then." she drawled.

"Did I mention that it has your name . . ."

"Yes, Scott. Yes, you did."

Silence.

"Would you have preferred chocolate?" I asked.

I thought she might strangle me then and there-but she wasn't called Frost for no reason. The woman's composure was legendary. "What-" she paused, took a deep and martyred breath, and continued, "on earth are you talking about?"

"For a thank-you gift. Beast said chocolate, Kitty said a teddy bear. I figured another girl would know best. Was I wrong?" I was twenty-three years old, held not one, but two college degrees, and captained the largest(and longest standing)team of mutants in North America-but being with Emma made me feel like a spoiled, sulky child. She had a way of shaming me without even meaning to; which was great when I needed a kick in the pants to get my head out of my rear, but proved unhelpful when, like now, I was trying to just have a conversation.

"You listened to Pryde," Emma sighed more than spoke, "and got me a _teddy bear_. You are aware that I've castrated males for less?"

I edged away from her on the bench. She might have been nearly two heads shorter than me and at least half my weight, but she was no less scary because of it. I didn't doubt that, between her careers as a supervillain, headmistress, and X-Man, she had the capability to put me in my place . . . whatever she deemed that to be. I wasn't too eager to find out.

"And what is this thank-you gift nonsense?" she demanded. "I don't require physical affirmations of gratitude."

She also just got entirely too wordy for me to follow.

"I don't need gifts." she clarified impatiently. One of her fingers found its way into her mouth, and she chewed on her pinky nail absently-her nervous habit.

"I just-I mean, you did so much for us-for me-" I shrugged. "It seemed like an asshole move to _not_ do something."

"So you bought me a $12.99 teddy bear recommended to you by a sixteen-year-old." she said dryly. "I can see that you were just dying to make it up to me."

"What happened to, 'it's the thought that counts'?" I demanded.

"What happened to 'diamonds are a girl's best friend'?" she countered. "Now _that_ would have been a proper thank-you."

"I thought you didn't need physical affirmations of gratitude." I said, air quoting her.

Emma's smile was the one I knew best-devious, condescending, and(if you squinted very, very, very hard and looked using only one eye)containing a sliver of affection. "You delightfully ignorant and asinine man. When diamonds are involved," she purred, "all bets are off."

I shook my head. "You're too much trouble."

"And you," she leaned forwards, brushing my forehead with those long, lovely fingers, "are too good." She pushed the teddy bear closer to me, until my hand closed over it again, the soft fur tickling my inside arm. "Keep your thanks. Whatever I did, it wasn't for you."

"Aww, and here I thought it was just because you liked me." I teased. "Take the bear, or else Kitty and Bobby will think that I crashed and burned."

"You did crash and burn," she pointed out. "And what in the world am I going to do with a teddy bear?"

"Put it in your room?" I suggested. "You could sleep with it on your pillow."

Emma gave me a withering look. I practically felt the threat of castration return. "You hid a camera in it, didn't you?" she accused.

"What? Of course I didn't!" I said, affronted.

She eyed me, unconvinced. "Scott, darling, you've been unnaturally good-humored during this whole conversation. One would think it suspicious at the very least."

"Fine!" I threw up my hands, exasperated. "Toss the damn thing in the trash for all I care. Send it through the Prof's paper shredder, or use it to smuggle a bomb into the White House. Just _take it_."

Emma looked at the stuffed animal with distaste.

"It's a teddy bear."

Aaaaaaand, here we were again. "Yeah. We established that."

"It would completely ruin my reputation as a badass telepathic queen." Emma started to chew on her pinky nail again. How she got away with saying things like that and still coming across as stunningly cold and evil was beyond me.

"Well, sitting here with this thing in my lap hardly contributes to my dark-moody-and-handsome leader image," I pointed out.

She fixed me with another of her lovingly disgusted looks. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, darling, but you aren't handsome. You're anal, aggressive, overbearing, neurotic, and endearingly awkward, but you aren't handsome."

"Now that's just mean." I complained half-heartedly. "Here I am, risking total humiliation via teddy-bear-holding just to preserve _your_ reputation, and you have to go and say something like that."

"Well, you shouldn't have bought me the teddy bear. I really have no idea what possessed you."

"Beast bought his girlfriend a lava lamp. She didn't complain."

"I'm not your girlfriend. And Beast's girlfriend also happens to be an alien. I'm sure she's impressed by a great many things that the rest of us find juvenile."

"Don't let her hear you say that." I whistled. "She packs heat like nobody's business."

"Like you?" Emma asked slyly.

"Nobody packs heat like me. But let's stay on topic." I turned towards her on the bench, tucking one leg under the other. "How am I not handsome? All of the girls I've dated thought I was handsome."

"Again, I am not your paramour," she said, with tired annoyance. "Furthermore, how many girls have you even dated?"

" . . . one." I admitted grudgingly. She smirked. "See? How is that in any way a reliable gauge of attractiveness?"

"Hey, I shower every day," I defended myself. "And I'm even shaving regularly now, too."

"Whose influence was that, I wonder?" she muttered. I ignored her.

"Aside from wearing makeup, what else can I do?"

"To begin with, there are the glasses." Emma gestured in the air with her hands at my lenses. "Bad fashion choice. Extremely bad fashion choice. And the strange visor that covers most of your face?" she snorted. "Granted, it does the world a favor, but you resemble an action figure every time you aren't using it."

"Well, gee, I could ditch the glasses, but then I'd be burning you to a crisp right now." I said sarcastically.

Emma sighed. "Why must you be difficult?"

"I'm not being difficult. This is an inherent part of my nature." I objected.

She rolled her eyes. "_Everyone_ else can control their mutation, but Scott Summers? Nooo. He's _far_ too special for that."

"I would if I could!" I snapped. "Don't you think that I hate being like this? Seeing everything through a red haze?"

She snorted. "You would do that even without your powers. Anger is your default setting, after all. And, honestly darling, this bemoaning does nothing to raise your standing in my eyes. Self-pity is entirely last century."

Sometimes I just wanted to kill Emma. She never stopped being my therapist, talking me through problems that I didn't even want to think about, seeing through all the defenses I tried to put up, _determinedly not just taking the stupid teddy bear. _She was the one person who I couldn't lie to, and not from lack of trying. Cliched as it was(and it really, really, _really_ was), she got me as no other human being did or could. I wasn't sure if it was a telepathy thing or an Emma thing, but I mostly suspected the latter.

If only because our connection went both ways.

"Enough," I said after a pause. "We can end this bickering right now."

"We can?" Emma raised that eyebrow again, this time in disbelief. "I confess to being under the impression that we will be bickering right up to our dying day. I was rather looking forwards to it, actually."

"We can." I affirmed, taking the teddy bear in my hand again and thrusting it at her. "Just _take the bear_."

She deliberated, looking at the stuffed animal as if it were a foreign object that she wasn't completely sure was safe. "You honestly didn't plant a camera in it?"

"For goodness' sake, no, I didn't!" I exclaimed, wiggling it for emphasis. "Look, it's a gift, it has your name on it, and it comes with no strings attached. Just accept it graciously and we can both move on."

She'd been moving, albeit slowly, to take it, but then paused and looked up at me. "_No_ strings attached?" she queried.

"None." Exasperated, I just dropped the bear in her lap, where she transferred her gaze immediately. Her hands hovered over the object, and her expression said that it might as well have been bird droppings resting there instead of an adorable fuzzy creature that I paid, not $12.99 as she'd claimed, but $15.99 for. Not that that's important or anything.

"I was hoping for strings, too." she said.

I didn't bother deciphering that. "Ems, thank you. For everything. Now can this whole conversation be over and done with?"

Emma gave me a smile-a real smile, not a smirk or a mocking grin. Her blue eyes went soft for a second, and she reached out to touch my face again. "Yes, it's over," she murmured.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

I groaned, eyes sliding open, breaking layers of sleep crust, hand reaching absently out for Emma.

"Scott?" Jean muttered sluggishly, and I froze.

I'd been dreaming of Emma again.


	2. Clarity

********************Clarity

"Hold still," Emma said softly, her slim hands sliding ruby glasses off the end of my nose.

"This is a bad idea." I gripped the chair arms in uncertainty.

"They're right here," she said, no doubt waving the lenses around in demonstration-except I couldn't see her. I couldn't see anything except red. I used to be plunged in blackness when I shut my eyes; now the world was a monochromatic haze of crimson whether they were closed or not.

I felt Emma's cool fingers slide over my heated eyelids. "Now, darling, you're sitting in front of a mirror, so if you open your eyes the only thing you're going to blast is yourself. I wouldn't recommend doing that."

She tilted my head backwards, into the tub of water she had waiting, and my hearing became more hollow as my ears sank below the rim to just barely lap at the suds. "I'm doing my best to suppress you, of course, but don't rely on me to do all of the work," she went on, and I heard the squirt of a bottle. The next thing I knew, she was rubbing cold shampoo through my hair, water splashing in the basin from her movements. "Keep your mind blank." Emma instructed. "Try not to get too angry."

"You're giving me a haircut. What is there to get angry about?"

She didn't reply, only lifted my head out of the water. Rivulets streamed down my neck, soaking the back of my t-shirt, which stuck uncomfortably to me as I sat back up in the chair. Emma's nearness disappeared for long seconds before she returned with what I assumed was a towel, rubbing it vigorously over my head. Wet tendrils of hair tickled my forehead.

"I'm assuming you don't want anything stylish or interesting?" Emma inquired, sounding despairing of my taste in hair, as she did of all my other tastes.

"Just make it shorter. But not too short."

"What? You have no desire to resemble Xavier?" Her laugh was light, her nails scraping at my scalp as she ran her fingers through my hair. "Boring old Scott Summers' look it is, then."

She vanished again, leaving me in a world of red where the only reality was the sensation of my damp shirt stuck between my back and the chair. I heard her rummaging around, opening and closing drawers, and then the clack of her heels approached my chair again. Something light draped itself around my shoulders.

Scissors made a shearing sound, which then grew closer. Strands of hair fell onto my shoulders, barely heavy enough to make an impression; but I felt them nevertheless. With my eyes closed, everything else was bigger-scarier. The sound of a pair of scissors was eerily like the sound of Mr. Sinister's surgery machine, and the clip-clip-clip near my ear had me terrified that Emma would have the lobe clean off if I moved at all. Each strand of hair that fell was like a ten-pound weight.

She was quick at least, pulling a comb through my hair and using it to measure the lengths, snip here, clip there, and suddenly she was pulling the cape off of my shoulders. I heard her shake it out with a sharp _snap_.

"Shave, too?" she asked me.

Truthfully, it was getting uncomfortable to keep my eyes shut for so long, but if she was offering, I wasn't going to refuse. "Do you think I could have my visor back for just a sec? The heat's getting a little much."

"I have a better idea," she told me. "How long was it since you were able to see? I mean, really see, without worrying about laser beams or any of that nonsense."

"Fifteen." I said without missing a beat. "Why?"

Her hands covered my eyes again, but it wasn't soft skin that I felt-they were cold and hard. Diamond. "Open." she ordered.

"I'll blast you!" I protested. "Heck, I'll blast myself."

"Scott," she paused deliberately, the chiding tone evident in her words. Schoolmarm Emma was back. "Trust me."

I opened my eyes, expecting searing light to permanently scar my retinas and leave me blind for good. All that happened was sight.

Colors.

The light reflecting off of Emma's diamond palms in rainbow hues; the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. After she was sure that I was properly awed, she slowly removed the hands shielding me from the world, careful to remain close just in case something went wrong.

"How is this possible?" I choked out, stunned beyond words. I was looking at the ugly yellow wallpaper of the kitchen, the dark ebony wood of the table, the peach color of my own hands-things I hadn't seen in nearly ten years.

"I'm suppressing your abilities," Emma said, sounding strained, but not overwhelmed. "It isn't permanent."

"It's . . . amazing . . ." I got to my feet, cautiously rotating around. When I faced the window, my breath caught. "The sunset." The purple edging the skyline used to be nothing more than a memory-but now I could discern the contrast of the orange, red, yellow, and violet. "It's gorgeous."

I turned to Emma, half ashamed of my wide-eyed gawping, half affronted that she'd had this skill all that time and hadn't let me know.

Her eyes were blue. No one had told me that. I'd guessed at her hair color from the paleness, but blue was the one color that absolutely evaded my detection. It always just looked black.

"I-thank you," I stammered out. She dismissed me with a wave. "Don't expect me to ever do this again. You've co-existed with your mutation quite well over the years. I'll be damned if I see you throw that away. Not to mention it would hardly reinforce the image of mutant pride that we've been cultivating for the past year."

"Yeah, but-wow." I cupped her face in my hands, still caught up in the wonder. "Your eyes are so blue."

"Yours are brown." She touched my temple, and her tone turned businesslike. "Now that we've established that, if I could get on with your shave?"

"Of course. Right." I wasn't ready to give up the freedom, but Emma was starting to look a little pained, as if keeping the power at bay was becoming too much. I sat back down in my chair and closed my eyes.

Almost immediately, a rush of heat scalded my eyelids, the force enough to pry them open a crack-it would have been more, but Emma's hands clamped around my temples, her fingers pressing my lids shut. "Hold onto it!" she shouted, and for the first time, I detected panic in the manner of the White Queen.

I brought my own hands up, covering hers, sealing the beams with my skin. The blast seemed to go on forever, until it didn't anymore. It didn't stop; but it lessened to the point where I could once more control it. Emma lowered her hands. I could feel her stomach heaving with breath behind me-she was standing so close that, every time she inhaled, her body brushed the back of my head and shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "I didn't expect . . ."

"It's okay," I told her. "I'm used to it."

She sighed, a miniature breeze of hot air that ruffled my hair with its intensity. "Well, _I'm_ not. I see that your 'gifts' should be treated with less levity."

"Seriously, it's no big deal after you burn down your first two or so towns," I joked. She didn't laugh. Her hands were resting on my shoulders, and she leaned into me as she spoke, so that I could feel her voice reverberating at the back of my neck.

"I've never not been in control of my powers," she said, sounding like she was wearing her teacher's frown-the one that meant she was having 'serious concerns' about my 'wellbeing as an individual'. "I have no idea what that feels like."

"I do have control." I briefly touched my temples, remembering the first few days of wearing my visor. It took getting used to, but now it's a habit more basic than breathing. Adapting didn't take as long as I thought-it was as though, with my abilities, came the knowledge of what I had to do to put up with them. "It's just different from your version."

Her arms slid around my neck, and before I knew it, she was hugging me. "I don't much care for your version. It makes me worry for your safety."

I swallowed, and no doubt she felt it. "I said that I was used to it."

"I wish that you didn't have to be."

"What happened to the you're-a-mutant-be-proud-of-it speech that you just gave me?" I demanded, and Emma laughed and stepped away from me.

"You won't let me get away with anything, will you?" she asked. Her heels clacked on the linoleum floor, and the faucet handle squeaked. Water started to pour, hitting something hollow and metal.

"You do the same for me," I reminded her.

"True." There was a dull thud as she set something heavy down on the table beside me, and then Emma was pressing a wet washcloth to my face. "Now, about this shave . . ."

I settled down and let the feel of her hands take me to pleasant thoughts. It was nice to just sit back for a while, to shut off the world and let someone else do the worrying. Even when she started scraping the blade across my face, I stayed relaxed. Somehow, I had come to trust Emma that much.

She patted my cheeks and neck with a warm towel, and then pressed my glasses into the palm of my hand. "Done."

I slid them on and opened my eyes. The world was a red haze once more. Her eyes were nothing more than shaded orbs. "You should definitely open up a barber's shop." I said. "That was probably the best part of my week."

She smirked. "You haven't seen your haircut yet."

It took a second to sink in.

"What did you do?!"

I looked to the mirror that she'd set up in front of me, visions of strange words shorn into my scalp or weird makeup lines on my face running through my head.

What I saw was worse.

"What-what the hell-" I brought my hand up to my hair, just to make sure it was still there. "Emma Grace Frost."

"I didn't tell you my middle name so that you could use it in that tone of voice," Emma objected.

"You gave me a mullet!" I shouted.

"I did not," she objected. "And it looks good. All I did was keep your bangs long."

"It looks terrible!" I banged my fist on the side of the mirror, which rattled unstably.

"I contemplated giving you a Bieber bowl." Emma folded her arms.

" . . . I don't even know what that is."

"Be glad."


	3. The Interlude

"What do you dream about?" Jean asked, trailing her fingers through the condensation on her glass of lemonade. I should have been glad, since she wasn't watching Logan, who was working, shirtless, on Rouge's broken-down car in the driveway. I should have been, but I was-incidentally-thinking about my dreams.

They troubled me.

"Why do you ask?" I neatly dodged the question, and surreptitiously looked around for someone-Beast, Storm, Bobby-who could rescue me from the conversation to come. I got no such luck.

I was perpetually haunted by memories of sitting with another woman at this very terrace table, and it made lying to my girlfriend that much harder. I wasn't sure if it was because she was dead(since when she was alive she practically drove me up a tree with her idiosyncracies and snarky comments)or because of the manner of her death, but I couldn't remove Emma Frost from my brain. Furthermore, every time I thought of her, I ached. And not even in the good places.

"Scott." Jean fixed me with a stern look-which, although nothing compared to the skewering glares I'd put up with from Emma, was nevertheless scary enough to stop my frantic stalling.

I pressed my knuckles to my forehead, willing the thoughts away. I didn't want to be comparing them. There had been nothing between Emma and I-and even if she had been in love with me, that didn't make me responsible for what happened. She _chose_ to give her life for my girlfriend, and her feelings meant nothing now that she was gone.

"Jean, I-" I began, and she covered her hand with mine. "I know what you're going to say," she said soothingly.

"You do?"

"Yes." She sighed, and I took her hand. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But I know that you think about her." Her eyes were soft, sad, and the hurt in them wounded me, as well.

"I-I don't want to." I stammered out, my cheeks flushing hot. Jean was so sweet that I practically burned myself up trying to be worthy of her. Shame curdled in my belly when I started to think of exactly what Emma would have to say in regards to _that_.

_"You shouldn't force yourself to be good enough for someone, darling. You're either together, or you're not. That's all that matters."_

I _had_ to stop thinking about her. I had Jean in the here and now-she was alive and healthy and she had chosen me, not Logan. I had everything that I'd ever wanted as a boy.

But what about what I wanted as a man?

"I don't want to." I repeated, more calmly. "But Emma was a good friend to me-to all of us, really. She kept her word, and was an X-Man to the end." And I was so very proud of her, even if she wasn't there to accept my praise. "I don't want to feel as though I can't even think about her."

"But-?" Jean prompted.

I sighed, and released her hand. "I never stopped loving you. I promise that. But being with her was . . . different. _I_ was different, and I-I liked who I was. When I wasn't making myself sick, worrying about you, that is."

Jean frowned at me, but it was more in an aren't-you-the-funny-one way than an I'm-seriously-ticked-off-now way. "I don't understand."

I slipped my thumb and forefinger under my glasses, rubbing the bridge of my nose. "Neither do I. But I-I dream of her. A lot."

"What kind of dreams?" my girlfriend asked cautiously. I doubted she really wanted to know the answer.

"More like memories, really. But of things that never happened. At least . . . I don't think that they happened." I shrugged. "I guess it's stuff that would've happened, if you . . . if you never came back." I felt like I was betraying her just by saying the words.

"I don't expect you to control your dreams," Jean said softly. "I understand that it's hard. She was your friend, and it's natural to . . . well, to _obsess_ over someone who's recently passed away. What makes it hard is that she was in love with-"

"She _died_," I spat out, unexpectedly vehement. My temper surprised even me. "She didn't pass away. She died. Spectacularly." I didn't want to hear that she was in love with me, not dropped so callously in a conversation by my own girlfriend. It seemed disrespectful, and even if I couldn't give Emma my love, I wanted to give her my respect.

_She'd dead,_ the rational side of my brain protested. _Doesn't matter what you give her, she's long past caring._

"She . . . died." Jean repeated carefully.

"Yeah." I buried my face in my hands, squeezing my eyes tightly shut. I hadn't been able to cry since laser beams decided to take up residence in my corneas-and never had I been more grateful of that fact. "Yeah, she did."


	4. Street Fight

"We really must stop meeting like this, darling," Emma purred, smiling despite the words that were intended to be a reprimand. "People will start to talk."

I elbowed one of my assailants in the nose, and he fell to the ground amidst a spurt of blood and a flurry of curses. "If you aren't going to help me, go away."

"And what kind of X-Man would that make me?" she chided, primly kicking a man with one booted foot. The high heels, I had to admit, came in handy when it came to good, old-fashioned brawling. "So, why exactly are we sullying our hands like common thugs?" As she spoke, she coaxed two of my enemies to turn on each other. Another stood up, declared that he was going on a journey to find himself, and ran out of the alley.

I abruptly found myself with no one to fight, and straightened self-consciously. "These guys were bullying some mutie kid."

"Mutie? Sweetness, you sound like one of them," Emma said, picking her way through the trash littered on the ground to stand beside me and nudge Nose Job with her toe. "Where's the child?"

"He ran away."

"Understandable."

We stood there for a second, watching the two men beat each other up-why watch wrestling on Pay-Per-View when you could just have your resident telepath recreate the match with your enemies?-until sirens started wailing.

"Mardies." I groaned. One of the men must have had a phone on him.

Emma pressed a finger to her temple. "Twenty. They were at a bar nearby. The child you rescued tipped them off," she paused to scoff, "and they're going to be here in less than fifty seconds."

"I don't suppose you came in the Blackbird?" I said hopefully.

"No. I was going shoe shopping. Ororo discouraged me from taking anything flashier than a convertible, which, frankly, is unfair seeing as she commandeers the X-Jet every time she gets homesick for-"

"Now is not the time." I interrupted her monologue, which probably would have stretched on for-freaking-ever if I'd let it, and hustled her further down the alley, just as the tromping sound of MRD boots became audible.

"Less than thirty seconds." Emma informed me.

The alley ended with a brick wall and no space to maneuver.

"As plans go, this is one of your worst." She wasted no time in criticizing me, just as I found the safety ladder that led to the roof of the building to our left.

"Climb. I'm right behind you." I urged her up, and she clambered(surprisingly ungracefully)up the first few rungs of the ladder. "Now would likely be an inconvenient time to say that I have somewhat of a problem with heights, yes?" she grunted out, hunching her body close to the iron frame in the closest thing to fear I'd ever seen her express.

"Tell me you're joking," I groaned. "You'd better be, or else I'll throw you over my shoulder and haul you up on my back like a caveman."

"Wonderful." She kept climbing and whether she was joking or not was never settled, because just then the soldiers caught up with us and we both had to high-tail it up that ladder or risk spending the night in jail, which is not, contrary to popular belief, an X-Man pastime. The only one of us who's been arrested was Logan, and in my opinion that menace needs to be locked up more often.

One of the MRDs tried following us up the ladder, only to be greeted with a facefull of laser that sent him tumbling back onto his buddies' heads. The unintelligent bastards, they took their first beating and came back for more, swarming up in greater force every time I blasted them back.

"Emma, love, if you could get a move on," I urged.

"I'm going-" she panted, out of breath even though I'd seen her exert ten times as much energy on one of her ridiculous exercise videos every morning, "-as fast-as I can."

" . . . I was serious about the Cro-Magnon thing."

"Good to know."

We continued our painfully slow ascent upwards, until, finally, Emma's white boots were no longer dangerously short inches from my nose but flailing, still clumsily, in the air as she clambered onto the roof of the building we'd just scaled. She grabbed my arm, hauling me up the last few rungs, and I quickly pried the rusty support bars of the ladder away from the concrete. We watched in satisfaction as the entire apparatus, MRDs and all, fell to the ground in a colorfully swearing heap.

"Okay, let's move," I ordered out of habit, grabbing Emma's arm. I'd forgotten how well she took orders, but her scowl reminded me soon enough.

She yanked away, a pout on her silver lips. "I can run on my own."

"Then do it." I had no patience for her hurt pride, not when we were barely six minutes out of danger and looking to plunge back in once we came up with a real plan. I started to sprint, gathering momentum to leap from the roof we were on to the next one over. I'd seen plenty of roof-jumping in movies-but nothing had prepared me for the reality of it. For one thing, the terror of falling to my death nearly brought me up short at the last minute. I would have slowed and certainly not made it across if Emma hadn't shoved into me from behind and hurtled both of us across the gap.

Midair, I became convinced that we were going to die.

Then my knees were cracking onto concrete and I realized that, lucky me, I was going to have to live.

"My car-I parked it the next block over, just in case those thugs caused trouble," Emma said, as soon as we had recovered from the trauma of having to see our lives flashing before our eyes-I, in particular, regretted my fondness in high school for sweater vests. "If we hurry, we might get to it before they cordon off the street."

We jumped to the next building with significantly less fanfare, then found the fire escape and climbed down.

"Let's go." It was Emma's turn to get bossy, striding out of the alley as brazenly as she pleased, right past ten or eleven police officers setting up yellow plastic barricades. I tailed after her, but, of course, I had to get stopped.

"ID?" The officer clutching my upper arm grunted.

I dug in the pockets of my coat, knowing full well that I'd left my wallet in my car, which was currently surrounded by MRDs looking for a man with my description. "Um-I-"

"I have it," Emma cut in smoothly, somehow interposing herself between me and the officer. "Here." She held out something that was most definitely _not_ my driver's license(it looked like a scratch ticket that she'd picked up out of the gutter)and the police officer's face melted into one of shocked respect. "Detective Wilson. Sorry, sir. I didn't recognize you, sir."

"Uh . . . that's okay . . ." I said uncertainly, and Emma pulled on my arm, yanking me away from the cluster of policemen and to the relative safety of the next street.

"You are entirely incapable of taking care of yourself, aren't you?" she demanded, shaking her head, blond hair flying around in the wind.

"I would have thought of something!" I defended myself. "I _was_ able to function before I met you, you know."

She shot me an amused look that smacked of condescending disbelief. "Really?"

"Really." I twisted my arm out of her grasp and folded it under my other one, scowling. "I don't need you to rescue me." And no, I did not sound like a sulking child, thank you very much. I sounded like a grown man, which I was. Am. Yeah.

"You mean, you don't need a _woman_ to rescue you," Emma scoffed. "You men and your pride."

"Our pride?" I spluttered. "What about _your_ pride, Miss I-Never-Make-Mistakes Frost?"

"There's a difference between pride and satisfaction in oneself," Emma said primly. "What I have is self-satisfaction. I can never fail my own self."

"In other words, you're vain." I rolled my eyes; not that she could see.

"Most people would just say 'thank you for saving me, Emma', you know," she said. If I didn't know better, I would have accused her of sulking. There was a distinctly sulky look on her face.

"I guess we both have problems with gratitude, then." I snarked.

"Don't you dare bring up that teddy bear." She jabbed a finger in my direction, scowling.

"I don't remember saying the words 'teddy bear'. _You_ brought that up." I uncrossed my arms and started scanning the street for Emma's red convertible. It had been mine, once, until she'd "commandeered" it for a mission and never given it back. I had never found the time to complain. She had a thing for convertibles, my Em.

"Although, that particular scenario does help cement my case that you can't live without me," she replied smugly.

I threw up my hands. "Okay, fine! I can't live without you! Happy now?"

Emma smiled, and leaned over to kiss my cheek. "Perfectly."

Then I woke up.


	5. Second Fiddle

******************Second Fiddle

"I just don't trust her." Jean folded her arms, brows slanted over her emerald green eyes.

"Well, I don't trust Logan, but that doesn't seem to matter much to you," I retorted, banging my fist against the refrigerator. It shook, rattling the bottles and other glassware inside, and she put a hand out to steady it.

"That's different."

"How? Because I'm so obviously overreacting when he makes it clear that he wants nothing more than to have you in his bed?" I demanded.

"As if _she_ doesn't do exactly the same thing!" Jean cried.

"I'll tell Emma to buzz off as soon as you tell Mr. Macho-claws to take a hike!" My voice rose to match hers, her irritation sparking my own.

"The only reason you don't like Logan is because he's into me," Jean said, making an effort to calm down and be sensible. She rather failed. "But Emma Frost is _evil_, Scott, and you're blind if you don't see it." Her green eyes narrowed, her barely concealed disgust glaringly obvious.

"Well, between giving up her expensive school, home, and position of ultimate power to help us save you, and sacrificing her life to preserve the whole damn world, yeah, I guess I kind of missed the memo about her villainy," I said sarcastically, adding fuel to the fire.

"Oh, yes, Emma's _heroic_ sacrifice." Jean threw her hands up in the air. "Nobody defile the sacred name of Emma Frost, since she, as I am constantly reminded, gave her life so that I, your lowly girlfriend, could live!"

"It's not like that-"

"Nevermind that she mysteriously _comes back to life_ six weeks later! That doesn't seem even a little bit suspicious to you?" Jean cocked her head at me, tendrils of red hair swirling around her face as she made an effort to keep herself in check.

"Emma is a friend, and an X-Man," I said, struggling to keep ahold of my temper myself. "I don't see why you can't just accept that."

"Contrary to everyone's belief, I'm not an angel, Scott!" Jean cried. The cupboards all flew open at the force of her words. "Some slut shows up while I'm gone and hangs her mind all over my boyfriend-and I'm expected to just be cool with that?" She shook her head, face scrunching up as she made an effort to reign in the telepathic wind that threatened to turn the kitchen into a maelstrom. "Nobody's that perfect."

"I never betrayed you," I said tightly, my hand reflexively closing around the edge of the counter, just to have something to grip besides, say, her throat. I wouldn't ever raise a hand against Jean; but the impulse was still there, as was my constantly boiling temper. Rage, for me, never came without the almost irresistible urge for violence. "Not in my actions, not in my thoughts. Can you honestly say the same about you and Logan?"

"Wh-you-why would you ask that?" Jean demanded. "Of course not."

I studied her; the flush of her face, the curve of her cheek, the hard look in her eyes that was softened only by the curling eyelashes surrounding them. I studied her, and I saw a stranger. "Here's the thing, Jean. You're the mind reader, not me. I can't magically tell if you're being honest."

"I'm not _lying_ to you!" Jean said angrily. "I can't believe that you're even implying that I-"

"Why? Because I'm supposed to have absolute faith in you?" The words that tumbled out of my mouth were the poisonous variety, the kind that we learn as children to keep to ourselves because they're the ones that wreck relationships and hurt feelings. But I was too angry to stop, too blinded to try to see things from her point of view, and too tired of keeping my words in check. "Because Ms. I'm-Not-Perfect-But-I'm-So-Damn-Close Jean Grey would never think about another man? Because I'm the tool who follows you around like you keep my balls in your purse? Maybe I'd like to have a mind of my own for once."

"This is exactly what I don't like!" Jean looked close to tears. "You wouldn't have said anything like that before you met _her_. She's changed you, Scott, and not for the better."

"Tell me it isn't true, then," I said. "Tell me that you don't love how I never disagree with you. Tell me that you don't find it oh-so-convenient, the way you dangle Logan and I from your apron strings. Tell me that you don't love playing the tragic heroine, desperately keeping us from fighting over unworthy you." I massaged the bridge of my nose, not sure how a simple discussion over milk(or was it eggs?) had turned into a screaming match. Nor was I sure how a sweet high school crush had turned into this antagonistic relationship. "I missed you, Jean, don't mistake me. But I'm not going to lie and say that a part of me wasn't glad that I didn't have to play that game anymore."

"That's her talking," Jean said. "Not you."

"Does it matter?" I asked tiredly.

"It should," she replied, crossing her arms. "I never forced you into a relationship with me, Scott, and I never gave you a reason to be so full of mistrust."

"You're lying every time you say that you don't want to be with him," I accused.

"And you're being hypocritical." She glared at me. "You can't be so hateful of Logan and then lecture me about being more accepting of Emma. It doesn't work that way."

"Look, I'm honest about why I hate Logan. He's a leering, lecherous, uncaring caveman who would use you to piss me off and then dump you. _You,_ on the other hand, keep trying to pass off your dislike of Emma as some kind of intuition that tells you not to trust her. And I'm saying that, no matter how much you hate her, she's never given any of us reason to doubt her." My knuckles were white, the hand clutching the counter long since gone numb. My other hand was balled so tightly into a fist that blood dripped, slow and steady, onto the linoleum floor. Neither of us paid it any mind.

"It's what you're not saying that's the problem," Jean told me softly. "It's not that I don't trust Frost as a teammate-it's that I don't trust her with _you_. I don't want her anywhere around you."

I opened my mouth to protest, and she cut me off with a wave of her hand. "I see how you look at her. I know what you dream about. And lying to me about _that_ is just as insulting to me as lying about Logan is to you."

"So, you admit that you lie about him."

Jean's sigh was a forceful rush. "Yes, I want him, Scott. I want him so badly that some days I think I might burn up from it. Is that what you want to hear?!"

"I want to hear the truth!" I snapped.

"Well, that's it! That's the truth! I. Want. Logan." She pressed her fingers to her temples, quelling the next psychic wave. "He's boorish and crude and new and exciting and, yeah, he's got plenty of bad qualities, but he never looks at me like-like-like I'm this big, boring disappointment! He never asks me to me anything but what I want to be. He makes me feel _alive_, not like some petty, vindictive bitch who's freaking out over her boyfriend looking at another girl. He only wants _me_!"

I had demanded it, of course, but the words stung no less. It was pretty much what I'd suspected all along, but that didn't make it any easier to take. It didn't make me any less angry. I closed my eyes, swamping out the kitchen and turning the world red, and focused on just breathing until I was calm-or as calm as I ever got. My next words weren't the hurtful kind, but they were still the kind that change relationships. They spilled out of me so fast that I couldn't have stopped them if I tried-and I didn't try.

"Then go be with him, then."


End file.
